T-Mobile may be the wireless industry’s ‘little engine that could’

Is T-Mobile’s recent subscriber growth a flash in the pan or is it part of a sustainable trend? Per Barron’s, Credit Suisse analyst Joseph Mastrogiovanni thinks that T-Mobile’s new “uncarrier” initiative is the real deal and that it will help the company see sustained subscriber growth going forward. In dubbing T-Mobile “the little engine that could,” Mastrogiovanni writes that the carrier is poised for stronger post-iPhone success than Sprint because it has a stronger network now than Sprint did when it launched the iPhone and it is being much more aggressive in its pricing and marketing than Sprint was.

Mastrogiovanni even goes so far as to call T-Mobile a potential acquisition for Sprint, which will look to aggressively build its network strength after being acquired by Japanese carrier SoftBank.

“T-Mobile is the last remaining sizable wireless acquisition opportunity in the United States,” he writes. “We believe that Sprint remains interested in consolidation and could eventually look to acquire T-Mobile if it can get comfortable with the administration’s outlook on a reduction in the number of national carriers.”